Fox News screengrab Keith Ablow, former Fox News pundit, accused of sexually exploiting his patients.
Dr. Keith Ablow, a former Fox News pundit, is accused of sexually exploiting female patients in three separate lawsuits, The Boston Globe reported.
The women say Ablow, a psychiatrist, lured them into “degrading sexual relationships” and beatings while treating them for depression with Ketamine.
One woman says she got Ablow’s initials tattooed to show his “ownership” of her, according to one lawsuit.
All three women alleged that Ablow abused his position while treating them for depression.
The women say Ablow’s treatment of them left them “unable to trust authority figures and plagued with feelings of shame and self-recrimination,” The Globe reported.
“Dr. Ablow has been a respected and highly regarded psychiatrist who has for decades helped countless patients,” Ablow’s attorney said. “He denies any and all allegations of improper behavior or substandard care in their entirety.”
“Categorically, completely deny the allegations lodged against me,” Ablow tweeted Thursday. “I look forward to the court proceedings and will continue to offer excellent care to any patient who needs my help.”
Here’s what you need to know:
1. Ablow Accused of Misconduct in 3 Separate Lawsuits
Ablow is accused of abusing his position and sexually exploiting his patients in three separate malpractice lawsuits, The Globe reported.
Two of the lawsuits were filed Thursday in Essex Superior Court and a third lawsuit was filed last year.
All three lawsuits allege that Ablow lured the women, who he was treated for depression, into humiliating and denigrating sexual acts, including during treatment sessions that the women were charged for.
When one woman said she was having trouble paying for her therapy bills, she says, Ablow told her to work as an escort or stripper because it paid well.
2. One Woman Said Ablow Repeatedly Beat Her
A woman from Ohio claimed in her lawsuit that she received Ketamine shots after being treated for depression by Ablow in 2015.
She began to have regular Skype sessions with him, according to the lawsuit, and the doctor asked personal questions about her sexual preferences and if she was dominant or submissive.
“I had never had a therapist or any professional take such an interest in me,” the woman said in an affidavit obtained by the Globe. “At some point, it became normalized and frankly necessary for me to communicate with Dr. Ablow several times a day.”
She says she moved to live nearer to Ablow’s office. She said she undressed during sessions and performed oral sex.
She alleged that Ablow would beat her while she kneeled on the floor.
“Sometimes he would use his hands and other times he would take off the belt he was wearing and use that to strike me,” she said. “This belt had a metal buckle with a skull on it.”
3. Second Woman Says Ablow Told Her ‘I Own You’ & ‘You Are My Slave’
Said one woman accusing psychiatrist and author Keith Ablow of abusing his position: “He began to hit me when we engaged in sexual activities . . . occasionally saying, ‘I own you,’ or ‘You are my slave.’ ” t.co/ZgTSeDmvCT
Another accuser, a woman from New York, said she got Ablow’s initials tattooed at his request to signify his “ownership” of her.
“He began to hit me when we engaged in sexual activities,” she said in an affidavit. “He would have me on my knees and begin to beat me with his hands on my breasts… occasionally saying, ‘I own you,’ or ‘You are my slave.’”
Andrea Celenza, a psychoanalyst who interviewed the women as an expert witness hired by the plaintiffs, said that Ablow’s treatment of the New York woman “was sadomasochistic, anti-therapeutic, and constitutes a perverse use of his status and power.”
4. Former Co-Workers Back Up Accusers’ Allegations
Three women have filed lawsuits against well-known Dr. Keith Ablow, alleging he lured them into demeaning sexual relationships they say included physical trauma. Each women were patients with depression. #NBC10Boston
A third woman from Minnesota, who filed her lawsuit last year, said that she began a sexual relationship with Ablow after he promised to help her music career while treating her for depression with Ketamine.
Ablow denied the woman’s claims last year and alleged that she had “trespassed” on his property, which she denies.
“The plaintiff in this case was the subject of a no-trespassing order by me two years ago, was ordered formally to stop harassing me, and her account is in collections for non-payment,” he said in a statement to the Salem News last July.
But three former co-workers filed affidavits in support of the accusers’ claims and accusing Ablow os sexual harassment.
Amy Dixon, a former staffer, told The Globe that she had a sexual relationship with Ablow in which he would hit her and tell her he wanted a “master/slave relationship.”
Dixon said Ablow once pointed a gun directly at her during sex.
Former employee Janna McCarthy wrote in an affidavit that she was “concerned that he was engaging in sexual contact with some of these women” that he was treating for trauma.
5. Ablow Has a Controversial Past & Was Denounced by The American Psychiatric Association
Former Fox News contributor Keith Ablow, accused of sexually abusing his patients, has absolutely repulsive views about women t.co/0IVIyZV7wa
Ablow had a controversial past at Fox News, where he often made disparaging comments about women.
In 2014, Ablow mocked then-first lady Michelle Obama’s campaign against child obesity by saying “she needs to drop a few” pounds.
“Let’s be honest. We’re taking nutrition advice from who?” he said.
A week later, he informed four female Fox co-hosts that they “could lose five pounds, probably.”
In 2015, he declared that “men should be able to veto women’s abortions.”
Ablow’s stint at Fox ended in 2017.
He previously resigned from the American Psychiatric Association over his remarks about transgender people.
“It is shameful and unfortunate that he is given a platform by Fox News or any other media organization,” former APA President Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman said in 2014. “Basically he is a narcissistic self-promoter of limited and dubious expertise.”
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